The Italian Sociological Association (A.I.S.), the European Sociological Association (ESA) and the Department of Political Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, propose an international conference on the following topic:

From memories to the future
Collective memories and horizons of expectations
in contemporary EuropeNapoli – June 4/5, 2015

With the participation of:

Labex “Le passés dans le présent”, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre

Art & Humanities Research Council “Care for the Future”, University of Exeter

Department of Social Sciences, University “Federico II”, Naples

Department of Economics and Statistics, University “Federico II”, Naples

Department of Human and Social Sciences, University L’Orientale, Naples

Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria, Rende

Fondation Royaumont, Val d’Oise, France 16-17 January 2015

By Michael Northcott, m.northcott@ed.ac.uk

A Franco-British Research Workshop of grant holders from the AHRC’s Care for the Future grant call and LABEX’s (Laboratory of Excellence) grant call ‘Les passes dans le present: histoire, patrimoine, memoire’ was held at the former Cistercian Abbey of Royaumont 20 miles north of Paris in January 2015. The Abbey was built in the thirteenth century and patronised by Louis XIV. It is situated in a large walled enclosure of gardens, water features and stone buildings. Over the centuries the monks instituted some remarkable hydrological features. Continue reading →

AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past and Labex Pasts in the Present: History, Heritage, Memory are holding a series of three joint workshops in 2015. The workshops seek to bring together researchers, ECRs and practitioners/professionals from project teams across the two programmes for two days of ideas exchange and discussion on shared themes.

The first workshop took place at the Royaumont Foundation near Paris on 16th and 17th January 2015. Please see the programme here.

The article below was written by Malcolm Lucard and is cross-posted from the Red Cross Red Crescent Magazine. It includes material from an interview with Prof Andrew Thompson, Leadership Fellow of Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past.

History in the making

Photo from https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/icrc-archives/

Malcolm Lucard

Internal records from the ICRC’s archives concerning the conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s shed light on a decisive era for humanitarian action.

In a small room in the basement of ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, historian Andrew Thompson methodically pores through folders full of documents — typewritten mission reports, confidential telegrams and hand-written letters — never before seen by people outside the ICRC.

“It is a process of discovery,” says Thompson, a professor of history at Exeter University in the United Kingdom. “There is a sense of expectation and anticipation not knowing what is going to be there. For a historian, it’s a bit like opening a birthday present, or like going into a candy shop.”

The ‘candy shop’ in this case is the ICRC archives, where Thompson is exploring 40- to 50-year-old records to be released to the public in January 2015 under the ICRC’s policy of making internal documents public in blocks of ten years once 40 years have passed since the events they describe.